


Cloudburst

by sequence_fairy



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 16:25:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7060330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/pseuds/sequence_fairy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lost key, a sudden downpour and suddenly, home is somewhere Ishida never thought it could be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cloudburst

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LoLoGreeneVines](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoLoGreeneVines/gifts).



> Happy birthday sweetheart! <3

Ishida makes it home in record time; the clouds racing across the sky over his head promise rain. He reaches into his pocket and comes up empty-handed. Where is his key? He remembers having it last night, remembers locking the door behind him this morning. Ishida digs through his bag, pawing through all the pockets. He groans in frustration. The sky chooses that moment to open up, and Ishida decides that the world is actually out to get him.

Lost his key - which is going to be hell to explain to his father; and now the rain - which is pouring down like someone is emptying bucket after bucket from the sky. Ishida pushes his now soaked hair off his face and stomps off, back in the direction on Inoue’s apartment, because she’ll be home, and he can wait out the rain there and decide how he’s going to explain about the key.

By the time he walks the few blocks to Inoue’s, he’s absolutely soaked through, and chilled down to his bones. The rain has not let up in any sense, and in fact, it is now coming down in sheets. He tries to wring some of the water out of his shirt as he ascends the stairs to her door, and shakes his head, spraying water in every direction. 

He lifts his hand, and knocks.

She opens the door to find him on her front porch, looking like a drowned rat.

“What are you doing outside in this weather Ishida-kun? You’ll catch pneumonia!”

“I –” he starts, and finds he doesn’t actually have an answer. He just – didn’t really think about it – decided that her place was the place to go. “Lost my key,” he says finally - which has the benefit of being the truth, but also is not the  _ whole _ truth. The whole truth is something that Ishida is not going to examine with any closeness because that would be too near to admitting things that he’d rather not just yet. Inoue arches an eyebrow at his answer and Ishida shrugs and looks at her over the top of his glasses. Inoue sighs, exasperated.

“Get in here,” she says, and he follows her inside. He waits in her entryway, feet squelching in his sodden shoes and hair dripping down the back of his neck. Inoue clucks her tongue at him and shakes her head before turning in a whirl of red hair and purple skirt. “Stay there,” she says, over her shoulder and he doesn’t move.

She comes back with a towel and he slips off his shoes while towelling the water out of his hair. Inoue watches him. He takes off his glasses to wipe them on the tails of his shirt, and when he slips them back on, she’s right in his face. He startles and rears back.

“Are you hungry?” Inoue asks, not waiting for an answer before she turns around and heads for the interior of her apartment. “I have –” Inoue’s voice disappears into what he assumes is her fridge and he follows after her, wet socks making sticky sounds against the laminate floor.

He finds her in her kitchen, head in her fridge and hips wiggling as she searches out whatever there is that is edible in her fridge. The movement of her hips makes her skirt swish about her thighs and Ishida finds himself unable to look away.

“Oh!” Inoue turns around when she notices him there and Ishida ducks his head to hide the flush that curls up from the back of his neck. She doesn’t appear to notice anything amiss and instead thrusts the plate of mochi she has discovered at him. “Here,” she says, and Ishida scrambles to take the plate that she drops into his not really ready hands.

“D’you want a drink?” Inoue’s already moving to the other side of the kitchen and Ishida is caught up in her wake, unable to say no, unable to do anything but stand there, dumbly, in the bright light of her kitchen.

The rain pours. Thunder rumbles after a flash of lightning. Ishida thinks about the way Inoue’s eyes catch the flash and hold it, about the way she moves through his life like a hurricane and the way he can’t seem to extricate himself from her orbit.

“Well, come on then,” she says and smiles fondly at him when he doesn’t move. “Ishida-kun? Is everything okay?”

“Sure,” he says, after clearing his throat, “everything’s fine.”

Inoue shrugs and heads out of the kitchen. Ishida trails after her, still carrying the plate. She settles on the floor next to the sliding glass door and Ishida joins her, awkwardly pretzeling himself into sitting. 

“I like to watch the storms,” Inoue says quietly. Lightning flashes, throwing her face into sharp relief. She’s counting under her breath and she smiles when the thunder grumbles, so low that Ishida feels it in his chest. “It’s getting closer,” she breathes, and Ishida is fascinated by the way her eyes widen and her mouth drops open as she watches the wild sky over Karakura. He wonders if she realises that the way she looks at the storm is the way she used to look at Kurosaki, and he wonders when he realised that she doesn’t look at Kurosaki like that anymore.

Inoue turns and turns that gaze on him, and Ishida is –

– mesmerized, enthralled, spell-bound, hypnotised –

– he’s compromised. That’s what he is. She’s so close, he can see himself in her eyes, reflected and then washed out by the next flash of lightning. This time, the thunder is a crack that rattles the windows in their frames and Inoue jumps.

“Close one,” Inoue says, and flicks her gaze back up at him.

“It’s okay,” Ishida says, and then doesn’t know where he was going with that at all, because she’s moved closer to him all of a sudden and now he can feel the line of her leg against his - the heat of her skin bleeding through the chill of his still-damp pants. The plate of mochi is forgotten on the floor behind them, and Inoue rests her head on his shoulder.

“I know,” she says, “you’re here Ishida-kun.” 


End file.
